Systems Fundamentals

Social and Ethical Issues

Students must study and evaluate the social and ethical issues involved in IT systems. Thes include:

• The economic value of information
• Environmental issues related to the production of computer components and supplies
• Environmental issues related to the disposal of obsolete hardware and computer supplies
• Health issues and ergonomics related to the use of hardware
• Password protection, security, biometrics and authorized access
• Issues related to viruses on both stand-alone and network systems
• Greater dependence of organizations on IT
• Increase in teleworking and the virtual office
• The need for ongoing training and retraining
• The economic and psychological implications of planned IT obsolesence in hardware, software and services, which has been forced on consumers by the IT industry
• Organizational policies and standard, for example, email, surveillance and monitoring policies

Knowledge of Technology

• Key terms: data, information, hardware components such as input devices, output devices, processing, storage, memort (RAM, ROM), Mhz, dpi, bit, KB, MB, GB, TB, ASCII, compatibility, OCR, OMR, bar code, baud, verification and validation, encryption/decryption, firewall, virus, Trojan horse, worm, logic bomb, platform peripheral
• use, advantages and disadvantages of analogue and digital data
• operating systems (multitasking, boot) and utilities, for example, defragment, disk format, virus scan programs
• responsible computer use, for example, regular backups, virus checking, security, storage, housekeeping
• a responsible and systematic approach to implementing or upgrading IT systems, for example, analysis, design, implementation, testing, evaluation, training, policies and standards